By Chris Smith, Wildlife Management Institute
The Fish and Wildlife Relevancy Roadmap is now available on the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies’ (AFWA) website. The Roadmap provides practical, non-prescriptive guidance agencies can use to adapt to ongoing changes in the social, ecological, and economic context for fish and wildlife conservation. These changes include accelerated habitat loss, declines in biodiversity, the impacts of climate change, and a society that is increasingly diverse, urban, and disconnected from nature. In response to these trends, agencies must find ways to engage more people in conservation.
The Relevancy Roadmap provides strategies, tactics, and examples of ongoing efforts to overcome 19 barriers that make it difficult for agencies to adapt to a changing operating environment. The barriers relate to agency culture and capacity, constituent culture and capacity, and legal and political constraints. Examples of some of the barriers are: agencies are not adaptive to the changing nature-based values and outdoor interests of broader constituencies; agencies lack capacity to identify, understand, engage with and serve the needs of broader constituencies; constituents may not recognize the threats facing fish and wildlife, their habitats, or how to engage to address the threats; and agency decision-making processes are used and influenced by a limited number of constituencies.
Over the next year, a number of states plan to pilot implementation of the Roadmap with support from the Wildlife Management Institute and funding from an AFWA multi-state conservation grant. The experience gained will be used to update and improve the ways fish and wildlife agencies can enhance conservation through broader public engagement.